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Sunday, May 6, 2012

Cena goes for a wild ride on Syfy?s ?Dream Machines?

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The Science of Social Pressure

Could your social network influence your behavior? | IStock photo.

By now you?ve undoubtedly heard that Facebook allows people to share their organ donor status. A friend of mine adjusted her information on the day of the announcement to reflect her donor status and someone quipped, ?What did you donate?? Snark potential aside, it?s a wonderful way to bring the donor community together and to raise awareness about organ donation overall. With over 100,000 people waiting for an organ donation and only 14,144 organ transplants in 2011, the prospects look grim for many?which has unfortunately driven a robust black market trade in body parts.

There is much to consider here regarding ownership and ethics. But there is also something to be said about social pressure, too. A 2010 survey (1) conducted by Donate Life America revealed the following reasons why people might not consider becoming an organ donor:

52% of respondents were open to the idea that doctors may not try as hard to save their lives if their wish to be organ donors is known

61% are open to the idea that it is possible for a brain dead person to recover from his or her injuries

8% believe that organ or tissue donation is against their religion

These beliefs are unfounded:

If you are sick or injured and admitted to the hospital, the number one priority is to save your life. Organ, eye, and tissue donation can only be considered after you are deceased.

While you can recover from comas, brain death is permanent and irreparable.

All major religions in the United States support organ, eye, and tissue donation.

Still, these ideas persist. The percentage of people who report believing that emergency personnel may not work as hard to save their lives or that they can recover from brain death remains high (pdf). What Facebook has done is launch a massive campaign to shift perception?after all, if you?re friends are doing it, friends whom you?ve vetted (hopefully?we?ll overlook that girl you met at the bar who swore she knew you in elementary school and then looked you up on Facebook a few days later) and opted to follow and share personal information with, then how bad could it be?

There?s science behind the mechanisms of social pressure. If you think of behaviors as viruses, you can see that they?re more powerful?or contagious?when passed between people who have contact with each other?and we?re more likely to have contact with each other if we?re friends. However, some network structures are better suited to this than others. Networks characterized by ?long-ties??where members have fewer overlapping connections and links appear to be more randomized?were believed to have a farther reach because they could transfer information to more unique members. But research has found that networks where members have a great deal of overlap between connections and interests?clustered networks?there are higher rates of behavior adoption because members can receive multiple signals that reinforce certain patterns (pdf).

In randomized networks, behavior is treated like a simple contagion where single contact is enough to pass the behavior on. But if you think about it, the challenge there is fairly illustrated by the Telephone Game: the message might be clear initially, but it gets diluted as it travels down the line. The same is true of behavior: the farther away you get from the original actor and the relationship you share, which provides a strong reason for why you might adopt the behavior, the less compelling it becomes to emulate and adopt her actions.

Behavior change is far from simple; it requires repetition. Within the clustered network frame, social behavior is regarded as a complex contagion, requiring multiple points of contact before ?infection? can occur. In 2003, researchers Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler gave us a good example of the power of clustered networks by tracing obesity, smoking cessation, and happiness through the Framingham network?a fortuitous byproduct of a medical study that collected information on personal contacts, which allowed the participants? social networks to be mapped years later, and for researchers to trace the spread of certain behaviors. Christakis and Fowler found that:

If a person became obese, the likelihood his friend would also become obese was 171%.

When smokers quit, their friends are 36% more likely to also quit. (Although this effect diminishes as the separation between contacts grow, and loses its efficacy at four degrees of separation.)

Happy friends increased the likelihood of an individual being happy by 8%.

Framingham demonstrated that your contacts matter and that what they do is of great importance. Our networks help us establish a sense of what?s acceptable?right down to expanding waistlines. The more social reinforcement we receive that certain actions are appropriate, the more likely we are to adopt those actions ourselves.

Facebook is clearly a clustered network. Part of the work done by Christakis and Fowler was to reproduce the measure of happiness in the Framingham network with a Facebook sample, and the results were strikingly similar. So if people start sharing their status as organ donors, it helps normalize the behavior, and minimizes the damaging effect of the misconceptions that hinder sign-ups. Peer pressure, in this form, can be powerful. It can convince you to do things you might not otherwise consider because you?re afraid or it goes against what you think believe. Peer pressure can shift the social mindset.

But it?s still peer pressure. And haven?t we been taught that this is a negative thing?

There?s already been an article asking why Mark Zuckerberg hasn?t indicated that he?s an organ donor. Should he have to? Or will he have to in order to be accepted? Silly question? Replace Zuckerberg with Joe Smith or Jane Doe and ask it again. How will we view people who fail to publicly comply with a greater social norm of the network? Do we freeze them out?

This is different from sharing a political or religious affiliation or music group or favorite because it?s a status that?s meant to cross boundaries. While very few people will argue that becoming an organ donor is a bad thing, it still remains a choice, and now it?s become a choice that we can be judged on. For example, in the Framingham study smokers mingled freely with nonsmokers in 1971 and they were distributed evenly throughout the network. However, by 2001 as groups of smokers quit, those who persisted were socially isolated. What if we required people to list their status as smokers or non-smokers?how would our networks shift as a result of this information?

If organ donor status becomes a part of the basic set of information a person can share on Facebook?it?s not, but let?s consider the possibility?how would this missing piece of information color your interaction? Does it frustrate you to not know this bit about your connection? Will you think twice about connecting with them? And if it?s not the organ donor status that does it, then what will? Knowing whether the person was bullied or was a bully as a child? Whether he as high blood pressure?

At the very least, this allows a community of donors who might not have otherwise known each other to find and connect with others who have made this very important commitment. This is a concerted effort to harness the potential power of a clustered network. Still, it?s not a network that exists in isolation. There?s no telling what will happen as a result of making this information public and no telling how far it will actually reach, but the impact of external factors, such as media attention, on network behaviors can?t be discounted. We?ll just have to watch and see. In the meantime, do you plan to share your status as an organ donor?

Notes:
1. Unfortunately, I couldn?t find the original survey that I had linked when I previously discussed these data, but you can view the original press release with the stats above here (pdf).

References:
Centola, D. (2010). The Spread of Behavior in an Online Social Network Experiment Science, 329 (5996), 1194-1197 DOI: 10.1126/science.1185231

Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2007). The Spread of Obesity in a Large Social Network over 32 Years New England Journal of Medicine, 357 (4), 370-379 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa066082

Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2008). The Collective Dynamics of Smoking in a Large Social Network New England Journal of Medicine, 358 (21), 2249-2258 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa0706154

Rosenquist, J., Fowler, J., & Christakis, N. (2010). Social network determinants of depression Molecular Psychiatry, 16 (3), 273-281 DOI: 10.1038/mp.2010.13

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Yahoo CEO faces calls for ouster after inaccuracy

In this Nov. 24, 2010 photo, then PayPal president Scott Thompson, who in January 2012 was named CEO of Yahoo Inc., poses for photos at PayPal's offices in San Jose, Calif. Yahoo shareholder and New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb questioned Thompson's qualifications and integrity after exposing a misrepresentation about the executive?s education. The fabrication confirmed by Yahoo Inc. on Thursday, May 3, 2012 gives Loeb more artillery as he tries to topple a board of directors favored by Thompson. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2010 file photo, then PayPal president Scott Thompson, who in January 2012 was named CEO of Yahoo Inc., speaks at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Yahoo shareholder and New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb questioned Thompson's qualifications and integrity after exposing a misrepresentation about the executive?s education. The fabrication confirmed by Yahoo Inc. on Thursday, May 3, 2012 gives Loeb more artillery as he tries to topple a board of directors favored by Thompson. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Scott Thompson's reign as Yahoo's CEO is in jeopardy after just four months on the job because he allowed an inaccuracy about his academic credentials to recur for years.

A major Yahoo shareholder who exposed the fabrication is now leading the charge to oust Thompson for unethical conduct. In a letter Friday, activist hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb demanded that the board of the struggling Internet company fire Thompson by noon EDT Monday or face possible legal action.

"CEO's have been terminated for less at other companies," wrote Loeb, who controls a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo through his hedge fund, Third Point LLC.

Yahoo reiterated Friday that "the board is reviewing this matter and, upon completion of its review, will make an appropriate disclosure to shareholders."

Thompson's troubles revolve around an exaggeration about his education at Stonehill College, a small Catholic school near Boston where he was graduated in 1979.

Since announcing Thompson's hiring in January, Yahoo had included two bachelor's degrees ? one for accounting and the other for computer science ? on the executive's biography. The dual degrees appeared on Yahoo's own website and in an April 27 legal document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

After being confronted Thursday by Loeb, Yahoo confirmed that Thompson received only an accounting degree from Stonehill. Yahoo has since removed all references to Thompson's education from his bio on its website. The company hadn't amended its SEC filing with the inaccuracy as of late Friday.

It's unclear whether the inaccuracy about the computer science originated with Thompson or someone else at Yahoo.

But Thompson's bio with dual degrees periodically cropped up before he joined Yahoo. He was listed with a computer degree on a website touting his appearance at the Web 2.0 technology conference in 2010 while he was running eBay Inc.'s PayPal payment service. The computer science degree also has appeared in Thompson's bio in connection with his 2008 appointment to a Silicon Valley startup, Zuora.

EBay listed only Thompson's accounting degree in its SEC filings while he was working at PayPal.

Even if Thompson didn't personally write his biography, he almost certainly reviewed the information at some point and should be held accountable for the distortion, said Charles Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware.

Elson believes Yahoo's board needs to dump Thompson or "it will face questions about its own effectiveness."

Yahoo blamed an "inadvertent error." After that excuse was ridiculed on the Internet, Yahoo issued another statement late Thursday about the board's intent to look into what happened. The company, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., didn't give a deadline.

The uproar over Thompson's qualifications and integrity is the latest tempest at beleaguered Yahoo, which has been reeling since it turned down an opportunity to sell itself to Microsoft Corp. for $33 per share four years ago.

The company has been losing ground to rivals Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. ever since, causing its revenue to steadily fall and leaving its stock price below $20 since September 2008, a few months after Microsoft's final offer. Yahoo's shares fell 25 cents to close at $15.15 Friday.

Thompson, Yahoo's fourth full-time CEO in the past five years, had just started to revamp the company, but he probably won't be around much longer, predicted Kirk Hanson, executive director for the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley.

"The board really is boxed into a corner," Hanson said. "If this individual is prone to exaggeration or excessive claims, they have to be worried it might happen again down the road.

"They also have to ask themselves, 'Can this leader serve as a moral example or moral leader for our company?' Behavior rolls downhill. If the CEO exaggerates a little, then others in the organization will exaggerate a lot."

Although he was well-respected at PayPal, Thompson isn't getting much support in Silicon Valley.

Thompson alienated much of the technology industry in March when he decided to sue Facebook for alleged infringement on some of Yahoo's Internet patents. The lawsuit has been skewered in Silicon Valley as a cheap shot at Facebook Inc. as it prepared to complete an initial public offering of stock that is aiming to raise as much as $13.6 billion for the company and its current shareholders. Yahoo critics also viewed the lawsuit as the desperate act of a company that has run out of good ideas.

In his Friday letter, Loeb argued that Thompson has to be dumped to avoid "irreparable damage to Yahoo's culture." He argued that Yahoo's own code of ethics justifies firing Thompson "for cause," a move that probably would prevent him for qualifying for a severance package. Yahoo's code states that information filed with the SEC "must be full, fair, accurate, timely and understandable."

If Yahoo fires Thompson, it will be the company's second ouster of a CEO in less than a year. The company fired Thompson's predecessor, Carol Bartz in September after concluding her turnaround strategy wasn't working.

Thompson so far has been focused on cutting costs. Just last month, Thompson laid off 2,000 Yahoo employees, or 14 percent of the workforce, in the company's biggest payroll purge in history. He has also promised to close or sell about 50 Yahoo services that haven't been attracting enough online traffic or generating enough revenue.

Loeb is trying to oust Thompson as he seeks four seats on Yahoo's board of directors ? one for himself and three for his allies. Yahoo instead added three other directors in late March. Thompson told Loeb he wasn't qualified to be on the company's board.

The search for new directors was overseen by Patti Hart, whom Loeb is also attacking as an ethics liability. Loeb is upset that Hart's bio claimed she held a bachelor's degree in marketing and economics from Illinois State University. On Thursday, Yahoo clarified that Hart graduated from the college with a bachelor's degree in business administration with specialties in marketing and economics.

Loeb ended his letter by pressing Yahoo to appoint him and his three preferred candidates to avoid a showdown at the company's annual meeting later this year. Yahoo hasn't scheduled the meeting yet.

"The company can ill afford to continue this misguided fight with its largest outside shareholder while it has so many other fires to put out," Loeb wrote. "There has been enough damage already."

Associated Press

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Saturday, May 5, 2012

Adam Yauch's Journey From Cancer Diagnosis To Rock Hall

Beastie Boys rapper kept his fans in the loop over the past three years since he was diagnosed.
By John Mitchell

The Beastie Boys' Adam "MCA" Yauch
Photo: Getty Images

Adam Yauch, one of the founding members of the pioneering hip-hop trio the Beastie Boys, died Friday (May 4) at the age of 47 following a long battle with throat cancer. Yauch's death has rattled the music world to its core, with tributes already pouring in from the likes of Justin Timberlake and Russell Simmons to fellow hip-hop pioneers Run-DMC.

Since his 2009 cancer diagnosis, Yauch has stayed away from the public eye, often communicating with concerned fans through email, but during a period of remission, the Grammy-winning rapper stepped forward with his bandmates to release what would be his final album with the Beastie Boys, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, and even won an MTV Video Music Award for his direction of the Beasties' "Make Some Noise" video.

Though he fought his battle with cancer privately, Yauch, a practicing Buddhist, always maintained a tight connection with the Beasties' fans and continued to work despite the difficult surgeries and treatments he faced. Below, we've taken a look back at the last few years of Yauch's life to showcase the one-of-a-kind music legend's perseverance in the face of such a difficult battle.

Remembering Adam Yauch with Beastie Boys' Essential Hits

July 20, 2009: Yauch announced in a video posted to BeastieBoys.com that he'd been diagnosed with cancer of the parotid gland, a salivary gland in the throat. "The reason we're here talking is because I have some pretty heavy news to say," Yauch said in the video. "About two months ago, I started feeling this little lump in my throat, like what you would feel if you have swollen glands or something like that, and so I didn't really think it was anything. ... They did tests, and I actually have a form of cancer in the gland that's over here, in the parotid gland, and it's also in the lymph node right in that area."

Yauch had surgery to remove the tumor and began radiation that same week. Due to his treatment, the Beastie Boys were forced to cancel their summer touring plans, including headlining gigs at the All Points West Festival and Lollapalooza, in addition to delaying the release of their album Hot Sauce Committee: Part One. The album was finally released in May 2011 under the title Hot Sauce Committee Part Two with a slightly altered track list.

August 5, 2009: In an email to subscribers of the Beastie Boys' newsletter with the subject line "What I did over my summer vacation," Yauch provided fans with an update on his treatment, writing, "So I'm about a week-and-a-half out of surgery now and rapidly recovering from it. ... My neck and jaw are still pretty stiff from the surgery, but it gets better every day. Had the stitches out this past Monday ... so things are moving along."

October 7, 2009: In another email to fans, Yauch wrote about his trip to Dharamsala, India, where he had traveled to see some Tibetan doctors and ended up attending a three-day seminar taught by Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. "I'm feeling healthy, strong and hopeful that I've beaten this thing, but of course time will tell," Yauch said in the letter.

March 9, 2010: Yauch attended the Independent Spirit Awards and told reporters that while his recovery had been difficult, he was ready to get back to work. "I feel better. It was touch-and-go there for a while, but I am finally getting my energy back," Yauch said. "It was really disappointing to have to hold the record and postpone the tour, but doctor's orders. We may or may not [release the album], depending on how my health is come September. We want to, but we have to play it by ear."

September 28, 2010: The Beastie Boys receive their first nomination to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

January 21, 2011: "Fight for Your Right Revisited," a short film directed by Yauch that picks up immediately after the events of the Beastie Boys' classic "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)" video, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In the film, Elijah Wood plays Ad-Rock, Seth Rogen portrays Mike D and Danny McBride slips on Yauch's classic leather jacket to become MCA. "Revisited" begins with the Beasties crawling out of the trashed apartment while the original '87 tune plays in the background. They head down the stairs and immediately run into the parents of the kids whose party they crashed, played by Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci.

April 20, 2011: The video for "Make Some Noise," the lead single from the Beastie Boys' Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, debuted, marking the band's first new musical release since Yauch's cancer diagnosis. The clip was cut from Yauch's "Fight for your Right Revisited" short film.

May 3, 2011: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two hits stores nearly two years after the initial planned release of the project. It's still unclear which songs from the unreleased Part One made it onto the sequel. The album debuted at #2 on the Billboard albums chart.

July 20, 2011: "Make Some Noise" scores MTV Video Music Award nominations for Video of the Year and Best Direction for Yauch. The nominations brought the Beastie Boys' career total VMA noms to eight, which include a Video of the Year nod for the Beasties' 1994 Spike Jonze-directed classic "Sabotage."

August 28, 2011: Yauch wins the VMA for Best Direction for "Make Some Noise." The win is the third for the group, which previously scored a 1999 VMA for Best Hip-Hop Video for "Intergalactic" and the Video Vanguard Award in 1998.

December 17, 2011: It is announced that the Beastie Boys will officially be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

April 14, 2012: The Beastie Boys become the third hip-hop act inducted into the Rock Hall during a ceremony at the Cleveland, Ohio, museum. Though he was unable to attend the ceremony because he was receiving treatment for a recurrence of his cancer, his bandmates paid him a warm tribute and read a letter written by Yauch to the crowd. Fellow inductees the Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their performance at the ceremony to Yauch.

Tune in to MTV tonight at 8 p.m. for "Adam Yauch: Remembering a Beastie Boy," an hour-long special hosted by Sway celebrating the life and career of Adam "MCA" Yauch, including his biggest moments and remembrances from his friends and peers. Check out mtvU now for classic Beastie Boys music videos.

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Olympic-Sized Pool Boat Is an Instant Tourist Attraction—Just Add Water [Pools]

Click here to read Olympic-Sized Pool Boat Is an Instant Tourist Attraction—Just Add Water

The city of Antwerp is currently in the process of converting an old ferry boat into its newest tourist attraction—an almost 400-foot long swimming pool that will double as a skating rink in the cold winter months. It's an idea that's so simply genius we think every city should build one. More »

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Tanning Mom on Snooki: An A$$hole With Fake T!ts

Looks like Patricia Krentcil and Snooki are in a war of words. It was inevitable.

Krentcil, a.k.a. "Tanning Mom," is firing back at the Jersey Shore star after Snooks went on Extra this week and weighed in on Patricia's recent arrest.

Police arrested the New Jersey Tanning Mom for taking her five-year-old daughter tanning. Asked for comment, Snook noted, "that b!tch is crazy."

Word. When Krentcil got wind of this, she labeled Snooki "the biggest a$$hole in the world" for criticizing her life decisions ... and didn't stop there.

Police have their hands full with all the Oompa Loompas in N.J. lately.

Tanning Mom apparently doesn't like Jersey Shore, because she says, "When this is all said and done, I'd like to meet up with 'Snoopy'."

Yup, Snoopy. Charlie Brown is rolling in his grave right now.

"She's fake, she's fat, her t*ts are fake, she's disgusting," Krentcil, who pleaded not guilty to child endangerment, said of the pregnant reality star.

It's a tough feud to pick the winner in, but even Snooki would probably know better than to let her kid into a tanning booth. Just saying.

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The One Styrofoam Object You Shoudn't Dispose Of [Design]

Click here to read The One Styrofoam Object You Shoudn't Dispose Of

Styrofoam is widely used because cheap and disposable, if not entirely recyclable. But when you heat-shrink it and fashion it into a giant ball, its value skyrockets to $700. High concepts! More »

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